Even After a Fortuitous Spill, the Nets See an Opportunity Slip Away

The tumbling Nets lost again, but this time, at least, the defeat came through bizarrely entertaining means.

The Nets fell behind by 27 points during a disastrous first half, and fans at Barclays Center were soon chatting away, losing interest, as if watching some unknown opening act at a concert. Gradually, the Nets awakened, catalyzed by Mirza Teletovic, a scarcely used reserve forward, who scored a career-high 17 points to put them on the verge of an unthinkable win.

And then came a shadowy incident involving a dark liquid.

After all this, the Brooklyn crowd was pulsating, primed for a cathartic burst. Instead, the Nets slumped to a 99-94 loss against the Los Angeles Lakers, watching their record spiral further, to 4-11.

But it appeared that the Nets would require some type of supernatural intervention to prevail — and Kidd seemed to take it upon himself to provide it in sketchy, if admirably clever, means. With 8.3 seconds left on the clock, Jodie Meeks sank his first of two free throws, pushing the Lakers’ lead to 96-94.

As Meeks was preparing to shoot his second free throw, Tyshawn Taylor and Kidd collided clumsily near the Nets’ bench, and a drink tumbled from Kidd’s hands and onto the floor. The game was paused for several seconds while the liquid was wiped up, and during that time the assistant coach John Welch sketched out a final play for the Nets, who had no timeouts left.

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The Lakers’ Nick Young scored a game-high 26 points against the Nets (4-11).Credit
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

It seemed too fortuitous to be true — and perhaps it was. Television replays appeared to show Kidd mouthing the phrase “Hit me,” before averting his eyes and running into Taylor. After the game, Kidd blamed the commotion around the bench as he scrambled to try to substitute players into the game.

“Sweaty palms,” Kidd said. “I was never good with the ball.”

Taylor, too, denied there was any gamesmanship — though he did acknowledge the possible helpful ramifications.

“It might ice a free-throw shooter and be a timeout when you don’t have one,” Taylor said. “But that wasn’t the thought process.”

Taylor laughed and added: “He was just in my way. ‘Coach, get out of my way, bro!’ ”

After Meeks made his second free throw, Paul Pierce came off a screen with 2.2 seconds left and had an open look at a potential game-tying 3-pointer. But it missed, foiling Kidd’s apparent gambit.

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Andray Blatche (0), battling the Lakers’ Jordan Hill, had 14 points and 8 rebounds in the Nets’ loss, which dropped them to 4-11.Credit
Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

The Nets were in that position thanks to Teletovic, who exceeded 20 minutes on the floor for just the second time this season and added five rebounds, two assists, a steal and a block to his career-high point total.

“I can really do much more things than just shoot 3-pointers,” said Teletovic, who sank four of them. “This is what we need, and this is what I try to bring every night, as much as I can.”

The Nets outscored the Lakers, 28-23, during the third quarter, which augured well for the home team. Entering Wednesday, the Nets had won all four games in which they had outscored their opponents during the third quarter and lost all 10 times they were outscored. But the trend did not hold up Wednesday.

The Lakers extended their winning streak against the Nets to 11 games. The understaffed Lakers — playing without Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash — have survived this season on 3-point shooting, and it was an ominous sign for the lifeless Nets when the Lakers opened the game hitting their first three attempts from beyond the arc.

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Shaun Livingston, putting up a shot against Jordan Farmar, had 5 points and 4 assists.Credit
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

The Lakers’ dominance bled seamlessly into the second quarter. They went up as much as 27 points — though the Nets did engineer a 15-0 run that helped them cut the deficit to 14 points entering halftime.

The Nets’ immediate future remains murky. They are playing short-handed, missing four key players, and there has been little indication about when they might return.

“They’re day to day,” Kidd said before the game, using words he has repeated almost indiscriminately this season. “These are injuries that, they can come back anytime. So we just take it day by day, and we’ll see how they feel tomorrow.”

Brook Lopez missed his seventh consecutive game and Deron Williams his fourth; both players are battling sprained left ankles. The Nets were also without the backups Jason Terry, who missed his fourth straight game with a sore left knee, and Andrei Kirilenko, who skipped his ninth consecutive game with a sore back.

Without them, the Nets pulled out all the stops, some shadier than others, and got a stirring game from a rarely used reserve, but still fell short on a wild night.

A version of this article appears in print on November 28, 2013, on page B13 of the New York edition with the headline: Even After a Fortuitous Spill, the Nets See an Opportunity Slip Away. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe